50 Ayn Rand quotes to learn more about Objectivism

You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

For a society to be free, its government must be controlled.

Individual rights are not subject to public voting; a majority does not have the right to vote on the individual rights of any minority.

Wealth is a product of man’s ability to think.

Civilization is the process of freeing man from other men.

A person does not emphasize his total ignorance of a subject if he really is totally ignorant of it.

Happiness is that state of consciousness that comes from the realization of our values.

I could die for you. But I could not, and would not, live for you.

To say “I love you”, you must first know how to say “I”.

If you don’t know, the thing to do is not to be afraid, but to learn.

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

There are no contradictions. Whenever you think you are faced with a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

My happiness is not the means to any end. This is the end. It’s your own goal. It’s your own purpose.

She didn’t know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named her were: this is not the world I expected.

You have been the only encounter in my life that can never be repeated.

The question is not who will leave me; is the one who will stop me.

I like to have the luxury of talking about interesting topics. I don’t consider myself one of them.

Individualism regards man – every man – as an independent and sovereign entity who has an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being.

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others.

I want to see, real, alive, and during the hours of my own days, the glory that I create as an illusion. I want it to be real. I want to know that there is someone, somewhere, who wants it too.

The greatest reward of the human being is that, while animals survive by adjusting to the environment in which they live, man survives by adjusting himself.

I’ve never found beauty in desiring the impossible, and I’ve never found the possible beyond my reach.

Through the centuries there have been men who took the first steps, along new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the warning of an approaching marauder.

Great men cannot be manipulated.

God… a being whose only definition is that he is beyond the power of human understanding.

The ends do not justify the means. Nobody’s rights can be guaranteed by violating the rights of others.

We lose everything when we lose our sense of humor.

I love you so much that nothing can matter to me – not even you… Only my love – not your answer. Not even your indifference.

What greater wealth is there than to own your life and spend it growing? Every living thing must grow. It cannot be stopped. It must grow or die.

It is not the death we wish to avoid, but the life we ​​wish to live.

But why should you care what people say? All you need to do is please yourself.

All you have to do is look straight ahead and see the road, and when you see it, don’t just sit there looking at it – walk.

I don’t want to be the symbol of anything. I’m just myself.

Creation comes before distribution – or there will be nothing to distribute.

Patience is always rewarded and romance is always just around the corner!

The hardest thing to explain is the glaring stark that everyone decided not to see.

This is the abortion of the idea of ​​collective interdependence, of the doctrine of non-identity, non-property, non-fact… The idea that the moral stature of an individual is at the mercy of the action of another.

So you think money is the root of all evil. And have you ever wondered what is the root of all money?

Racism is the most primitive and crude form of collectivism.

A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; Action presupposes a goal worth achieving.

The only power any government has is to repress criminals. Well then, if we don’t have enough criminals, the way is to create them. And making laws that forbid so many things that it becomes impossible to live without violating something.

Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.

I can accept anything except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the halfway, the almost, the halfway.

She knew that even pain can be confessed, but to confess happiness is to be naked, given over to the witness.

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to have fun and live.

The lust for power is a weed that grows only in the empty lots of an abandoned mind.

I swear on my life and on my love that I will never live for another man, nor ask another man to live for me.

Your mind is your only judge of the truth—and if others disagree with your verdict, reality is the last resort.

Was it not an evil thing to wish without acting – or to walk aimlessly?